Each
July 4, we have a specific occasion to remember what it is that defines
us as Americans. That memory (of a sovereign people whose government
would depend on the consent of the governed and would guard against
deprivation of their unalienable rights to life liberty and property)
has long been forgotten by many who live in the United States and,
indeed, by those who hold elected office, including the President
of the United States. Let us remember why it is that we celebrate
Independence Day, the day we set apart each year as requested by the
Founding Fathers to reflect on what it is that truly defines us as
Americans.

A
recurrent fear of George Washington was that the fledgling republic
dedicated to the end that the people be free would overcome constitutional
constraints and supplant the people’s liberties, but he well
understood that danger to depend on the abandonment of principle by
the people themselves. In 1783, he wrote: “The foundation of
our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition,
but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood
and more clearly defined than at any former period . . . . At this
auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation,
and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the
fault will be entirely their own.”

That
most extraordinary of documents, the Declaration of Independence,
brilliantly and succinctly defines the Lockean principles that are
at the heart of the American republic and that reflect our core commitment
to individual liberty and against government tyranny, making those
principles the very definition of what it is to be an American. Jefferson
wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and
to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Our
Founding Fathers forged a new government under a written Constitution
with the unprecedented aim of protecting the unalienable rights of
man to life, liberty and property, of making the people sovereign
and the government the people’s servant.

Against
the mightiest military in the world at that time, the Imperial Army,
Navy, and Marines of Great Britain, a rag tag force numbering no more
than 20,000 men in arms achived an end that only Divine Providence
could assure: the defeat of that British force and the surrender of
that Empire. More miraculous still, the victors did not steal the
rich spoils of our land but honored the principle of liberty that
animated rebellion, choosing, after a short but unworkable experience
with the Articles of Confederation, a Constitution of Liberty ratified
by the states.

In
February of 1778, the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army watched
as his men barely clung on to life, that terrible winter in Valley
Forge. Washington was in retreat. He lacked basic provisions. Eleven
thousand men and approximately 500 women and children eked out an
existence on a high plateau in huts assembled from forageable wood.
Few had a decent coat, shoes were in short supply, blankets were insufficient
in number for the troops. Disease ravaged the camp. General Washington
feared that his feeble army would dissolve.

General
Washington wrote on February 16, 1778, to Pennsylvania Governor George
Clinton: “It is with reluctance, I trouble you on a subject,
which does not fall within your province; but it is a subject that
occasions me more distress, than I have felt, since the commencement
of the war; and which loudly demands the most zealous exertions of
every person of weight and authority, who is interested in the success
of our affairs. I mean the present dreadful situation of the army
for want of provisions, and the miserable prospects before us, with
respect to futurity. It is more alarming than you will probably conceive,
for, to form a just idea, it would be necessary to be on the spot.
For some days past, there has been little less than a famine in camp.
A part of the army has been a week without any kind of flesh, and
the rest for three or four days. Naked and starving as they are, we
cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the
soldiery, that they have not been ere this excited by their sufferings,
to a general mutiny or dispersion.

Strong
symptoms, however, discontent have appeared in particular instances;
and nothing but the most active efforts everywhere can long avert
so shocking a catastrophe. Our present sufferings are not all. There
is no foundation laid for any adequate relief hereafter. All the magazines
provided in the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and
Maryland, and all the immediate additional supplies they seem capable
of affording, will not be sufficient to support the army more than
a month longer, if so long. Very little has been done to the Eastward,
and as little to the Southward; and whatever we have a right to expect
from those quarters, must necessarily be very remote; and is indeed
more precarious than could be wished. When the aforementioned supplies
are exhausted, what a terrible crisis must ensue, unless all the energy
of the Continent is exerted to provide a timely remedy.”

Barely
maintaining a foothold on the land, Washington’s army endured.
And then that Great Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army implemented
a plan so cunning that it deceived the British Empire’s finest
officers.

Following
the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, in 1780, the French and American
armies united North of New York. There, through a series of feints
and false dispatches intercepted by British regulars, the Commander-in-Chief
of the British forces in North America, Lord Henry Clinton was deceived
into thinking the Continental Army and the French would lay siege
on New York, then in British hands.

Instead,
the French West Indies Fleet under the command of Comte de Grasse
positioned itself off the coast of Virginia and the Continental Army
and French under the command of General Washington and the Marquis
de LaFayette marched from Newport, Rhode Island to Yorktown, Virginia.

Lord
Charles Cornwallis, commanding the British army garrisoned at Yorktown,
was caught off guard, alarmed to learn that his avenue of retreat
from battle, by way of the British fleet, was blocked by the presence
of the French Fleet off the Yorktown coast. In addition, the Continental
Army in numbers far larger than anticipated had assembled a major
force preventing Cornwalllis from escaping by land from Yorktown.
Under the circumstances, Lord Cornwallis agreed to terms of surrender
on October 19, 1781, signaling the end of British occupation of North
America and the rise of a new American nation.

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For
the first time in world history a government would be founded on a
written Constitution predicated on the consent of the governed and
dedicated to the protection of the unalienable rights of man to life,
liberty, and property. So, when we celebrate Independence Day, we
should be reminded of the rights revolution that gave birth to our
nation. We should be very grateful for the unique privilege of living
in a land whose founding charter promises protection for the unalienable
rights of man, and each of us should be resolutely dedicated to the
defense of those rights from enemies domestic and foreign, even with
our lives.

Jonathan
W. Emord is an attorney who practices constitutional and administrative
law before the federal courts and agencies. Congressman Ron Paul calls
Jonathan "a hero of the health freedom revolution" and says
"all freedom-loving Americans are in [his] debt . . . for his courtroom
[victories] on behalf of health freedom." He has defeated the FDA
in federal court a remarkable eight times, seven on First Amendment
grounds, and is the author of Amazon bestsellers The Rise of Tyranny, Global Censorship of Health Information, and Restore the Republic. He is the American
Justice columnist for U.S.A. Today Magazine and the host of “Jonathan
Emord’s Truth Trial” on the GCN Radio Network (visit gcnlive.com
and emordtruthtrial.com).
For more info visit Emord.com and join the Emord FDA/FTC Law Group on
Linkedin.

A
recurrent fear of George Washington was that the fledgling republic
dedicated to the end that the people be free would overcome constitutional
constraints and supplant the people’s liberties, but he well understood
that danger to depend on the abandonment of principle by the people
themselves.